USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Vol. I > Part 17
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On the 24th of June Mr. Byers, accompanied by Wilkes Defrees, left Denver with a fast team and a light wagon for Omaha, taking with them the gold extracted by Gregory and others, amounting to some- thing over four thousand dollars. Fearing robbery, they traveled day and night, securing fresh horses en route, and reached their destination in twelve days. Byers exhibited the gold in his office in that city,
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which created much excitement. Crowds gathered to see it, but many openly declared it to be a fraud; there was no gold in the Pike's Peak region; hundreds had returned pronouncing it a swindle, and this was spurious, manufactured expressly to excite emigration, etc. A public meeting was held which Byers addressed, relating all the circumstances of the various discoveries and declaring his unbounded confidence in the great richness of the country, which produced its effect, and brought large accessions from that section.
It is the common belief of those who are familiar with the general details of this memorable event, that Gregory found his gold in the gulch below the main thoroughfare between Black Hawk and Central, but the strike really occurred on the hillside at Claim Number Five of the Gregory lode, four hundred feet above the road. The discoverer's narrative, as related to Horace Greeley, who came out in June, was sub- stantially as follows: "Encouraged by this success, we all staked out claims, and found the 'lead' (lode) consisting of burnt quartz, resem- bling the Georgia mines in which I had previously worked. Snow and ice prevented the regular working of the lead' till May 16th. From then until the 23d I worked it three days with two hands and cleaned up $972. Soon afterward I sold my two claims for $21,000, the parties buying to pay me, after deducting their expenses, all they made from the claims to the amount of $500 per week until the whole was paid." Later he engaged to prospect for others at the rate of two hundred dollars per diem-probably the most munificent salary drawn by any person in the United States in that period, and one which permitted the employe, if so inclined, to indulge in some slight extravagances.
While thus engaged he struck another lode, the extension of the original, on the southeasterly side of the Gulch which took and retained for some years, the title of "Gregory Second." Again we have recourse to Greeley's account: "Some forty or fifty sluices commenced are not yet in operation, but the owners inform us that their prospecting shows from ten cents to five dollars to the pan. As the lodes are all found in the hills, many of the miners are constructing trenches to carry water
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to them instead of building their sluices in the ravine and carrying the dirt thither in wagons or sacks." It seems that the veteran journalist observed even the minor details of the work going on about him, and, accustomed to keen analysis of every subject worthy of attention, saw here an inexcusable waste of labor from the lack of systematic arrange- ment, in other words, a waste of power. Again, he discovered that "many persons who have come here, without provisions or money, are compelled to work as common laborers, at from one dollar to three dollars per day and board." It is an historical fact to be noted in pass- ing, that wages were lower in the two years following these remark- able discoveries than they have been at any subsequent period. Great numbers of strong men labored in the mines in that epoch, ten hours a day for four and six dollars per week and subsistence of the com- monest variety,-chiefly bread, beans and bacon, and coarse black cof- fee without milk or sugar-and grew fat upon it. The number of mines being insufficient for the multitude, the many worked for the more fortunate few. Says Greeley, "Others not finding gold the third day, or disliking the work necessary to obtaining it, leave the mines in disgust, declaring there is no gold here in paying quantities." These were simply pretexts employed by the weak and vacillating to excuse their rather cowardly retreat. No maledictions were so loud and bitter as those of the "Go Backs." This was no paradise for any man who paled before difficulties. We shall see in due course how some of them proposed to institute the communistic plan of "subtraction, division and silence," and the result.
No observer comprehended the situation more thoroughly than Horace Greeley. He discovered at a glance that "gold mining is a business which eminently requires of its votaries, capital, experience, energy and endurance, and in which the higher qualities do not always command success. There are said to be 5,000 people already in this ravine, and hundreds pouring into it daily. Tens of thousands more have been passed by us on our rapid journey to this place, or heard of as on their way hither by other routes. For all these nearly every
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pound of provisions and supplies of every kind must be hauled by teams from the Missouri River some seven hundred miles distant, over roads which are mere trails, crossing countless unbridged water courses, always steep banked and often miry, and at times so swollen by rains as to be utterly impassable by wagons. Part of the distance is a desert yielding grass, wood and water only at intervals of several miles, and then very scantily. To attempt to cross this desert on foot is madness-suicide-murder." Nevertheless, thousands did cross it in that manner, the writer among them ; indeed, most of the immigrants came on foot, for they could neither afford the expense, nor endure the luxury (?) of a seat in the coaches of the time. One more quotation from the venerable Horace, and we are done: "A few months hence, probably by the middle of October-this whole Alpine region will be snowed under and frozen up so as to put a stop to the working of sluices if not to mining altogether. There, then, for a period of at least six months, will be neither employment, food nor shelter within five hundred miles for the thousands pressing hither under the delusion that gold may be picked up like pebbles on the seashore, and that when they arrive here, even though without provisions or money, their for- tunes are made. Great disappointment, great suffering are inevitable."
But strange to relate, none of the calamities occurred which were thus rather gloomily foreshadowed. There was little or no actual desti- tution. Those who had, generously shared with those who had not, and all having become inured to exposure and privation, they managed to subsist on what was offered. Hundreds without claims or employ- ment, frightened by the reports of "old mountaineers" like Jack Jones and Jim Beckwourth, who rarely told the truth if it could be evaded, who predicted that the snows would fill up the gulches even with the mountain tops, fled to Cherry Creek and wintered there, or went back to the States. Others decided to remain and take the chances. Cabins were built and mining operations prosecuted through the winter, which proved exceedingly mild and pleasant, with but little snow. Most of them keenly enjoyed, as we have heard them relate, the new and novel
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experience. Such as were full handed, deriving revenue from their claims, were content ; the less fortunate worked for them with the hope, constantly alight, of striking a rich lode or placer in the spring. Nearly all were young men, full of virile strength and sustained by lively imag- inings of cherished dreams fulfilled ; there were college graduates, sons of wealthy families reared in luxury, the educated and the ignorant, the rich and poverty stricken uniting in one common brotherhood reduced to a common level, each firmly resolved never to go back home till he had " made his pile."
From Hollister we extract the following epitome of fruits gathered the first season : "It was not unusual for four or five men to wash out from the Gregory, Bates, Bobtail, Mammoth, Hunter and many other lodes then newly discovered, one hundred and fifty dollars a day for weeks together. Single pans of dirt could be taken up carefully from any of a dozen lodes, that would yield five dollars. Ziegler, Spain & Co. ran a sluice three weeks on the Gregory and cleaned up 3,000 pennyweights ; Sopris, Henderson & Co. took out $607 in four days ; Shears & Co., two days, $853, all taken from within three feet of the surface. Brown & Co., one and a half days, $260; John H. Gregory three days, $972 ; Casto, Kendall & Co., one day, $225 ; S. G. Jones & Co., two days, $450; Bates & Co., one and a half days, $135; Coleman, King & Co., one-half day, $75 ; Defrees & Co., twelve days with one sluice, $2,080. In one day Leper, Gridley & Co. obtained $1,009 from three sluices. One sluice washed out in one day $510. Foote & Sim- mons realized $300 in three days. The Illinois Company obtained $175 in their first day's sluicing from the Brown lode in Russell district. Walden & Co. took in one day from a lode in the same district, $125. John Pogue took $500 from a lode in the same district in three days. Three men took from the Kansas lode in two days, $500. Kehler, Patton & Fletcher averaged with five hands on the Bates lode, $100 a day for two months. Day & Crane on the same lode with seven or eight hands, sluiced for ten weeks, their smallest weekly run being $180, their largest $357. J. C. Ross & Co. with four hands, averaged $100
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a day on the Fisk lode for four months. F. M. Cobb & Co. on the Bobtail lode with four men, averaged from $75 to $100 a day for two months. Heffner, McLain & Cooper worked four men at a sluice on the Clay County lode, averaging $100 a day for ten weeks. Shoog & Co. averaged $100 a day for three months sluicing with five men on the Maryland lode."
Such is the well authenticated record of a portion only of the initial season, and it is transferred to these pages that it may be carried through the life of this history for use when the original shall have dis- appeared. It is the beginning of all things fixed and permanent which exists here to-day. It established and fortified the institutions since created. It gave a substantial basis for the population then on the ground, and for hundreds of thousands who followed. It was one of the · marked events of the century, the opening chapter of our chronicles. Here in Gregory Gulch was the cradle of our State, and from it were evolved its leading statesmen.
And here it may be well to inscribe the fact that the original dis- coveries have maintained their importance as producers, through every stage of progress. The principal mines of 1859 are the largest pro- ducers of 1888, and being true fissure veins, will endure so long as it shall be possible to operate them.
About the first of June, Green Russell's new company from Geor- gia, consisting of one hundred and seventy members, appeared in Gregory, but passed on to the district above Central City which bears his name, and there made a discovery which, for the time being, and in the immediate results attained, was scarcely less important than Greg- ory's. The first week's work with five or six men brought seventy-six ounces of gold. The entire gulch was immediately divided into claims, and soon about nine hundred men were employed digging and sluicing, "producing," says Hollister, "an average weekly of thirty-five thousand dollars." At the same time some two hundred men were tearing up the tributary gulches-Nevada, Illinois and Missouri Flats, each yielding about nine thousand dollars per week. But the supply of water being
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limited, and the area mined, becoming daily more extended, measures for increasing the volume became imperative, and as this could only be accomplished by artificial means, a company was formed to construct a canal twelve miles in length, and thereby convey the waters of Fall River from its source, across the intervening hills to the mining fields. It was completed in the spring of 1860, at a cost of $100,000.
We digress from the main subject to say that the subsequent possession of the "Consolidated Ditch" under chartered rights has been, from the date of the desertion of the worked-out gulches and flats, an unmixed curse to the whole region. It passed into the hands of a syndicate of New York shareholders that would neither sell except at an exorbitant price which the people, though in great need, prop- erly refused to pay, nor make such improvements as would afford them the benefit of the water it claimed. There have been times when the possession of this valuable franchise by the people of Gilpin County would have been of incalculable advantage, but they were unable to secure it without unwarranted sacrifices. Still it has not profited its owners for more than twenty years. It stands to-day an incumbrance that can neither be removed nor made to serve any useful purpose.
Notwithstanding the numerous discoveries, only a small minority of the people could secure a permanent foothold. To make the dis- tribution fair and equitable, each lode was subdivided into locations of one hundred feet in length along the vein, by fifty feet in width, for surface dumpage and general accumulation, the discoverer being, how- ever, entitled to two hundred feet. But even this liberal provision failed to meet the demand. Hence it behooved the surplus to seek new fields. This brought about several discoveries in Boulder County, in Twelve Mile diggings. at the head of North Clear Creek, on Left Hand and various tributaries of the Boulder. Quartz veins of exceed- ing richness were struck at Gold Hill, and about the first of October a rude quartz mill was started there. All the Boulder diggings paid from three to five dollars per day.
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Early in May a man named A. D. Gambell with a party of friends arrived in Denver, and, following an old trail, reached the town site of Golden. From thence they bore to the right, passing along the foothills to Boulder Cañon, where they halted and began hunting game to supply themselves with a provision of meat for the next stage, which would take them far up into the mountains. Those who were encamped in the vicinity endeavored to dissuade Gambell from his pur- pose, saying they had been there, and "it was a humbug"-no chance of finding anything but snow and ice. Nevertheless, they went with all their possessions mounted on pack mules. Proceeding up the beautiful cañon of the Boulder, when near the summit they encoun- tered a fearful snowstorm. Having no forage, the mules were sent back to the valley. The men took their burdens upon their shoul- ders and plunged into the snow-covered ravines. Trudging along under great difficulties, they came at length to a tributary of the Boulder, where a gulch intersected and formed a flat. Here they camped and built a house, or hut, of brush to protect them from the storms-a frail habitation, to be sure, but better than no shelter. The next day they advanced up the gulch. The ground was frozen, yet they found indications of an excellent placer. There was no water ; to dig was extremely difficult. Gambell finally hit upon the device of building a huge fire of logs upon which the dirt taken out could be thawed, and panned in water obtained from melted snow. The pros- pect secured convinced him that he had made a strike of consider- able importance. The place was named " Gambell's Gulch," and became ultimately a noted producer. The "find" was made on the 5th of June, 1859. From the original small excavation Gambell took out eight dollars worth of gold. Convinced that nothing in the way of legitimate endeavor could be undertaken until the frost and snow dis- appeared, they descended to the valley for supplies. The next move was to cut a wagon road up to the mine and whip-saw lumber for a cabin and sluices.
Requiring certain articles which could only be obtained in Denver,
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and having very little money, Gambell perforated a piece of tin and sifted through it a large quantity of the auriferous dirt from his claim, obtaining by this rude process about ninety dollars in coarse gold. Then, with a companion named Bolinger he came to Denver and attended Horace Greeley's lecture delivered the same evening. Se- lecting such supplies as were needed, and paying for them in gold, of which they seemed to have an abundance, their movements attracted general attention, and frequent inquiries were made as to where they found it. Says Gambell in his quaint but until now unpub- lished narrative: "We footed it to Golden, waded the stream, and when on the opposite side, it being quite dark, we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and slept the sleep of the just. On arising in the morning we saw about a dozen covered wagons on the south side. They had watched and followed us. Five men came over where we were and told us to go to their camp and get breakfast, and then show them where we got that gold, and if we could not they would hang us to a tree. We went over with them. That day at five o'clock we were back in Gambell Gulch."
But it appears that this discoverer remained there only a short time. He was of a roving disposition and had seen much of the world in his time. Governor Steele came to the camp and induced him to go on a further prospecting expedition, which led them to the present town of Nevada. Ben Burroughs had just discovered his famous lode. Gambell stopped awhile and staked out a gulch claim just below that of Burroughs ; built a cabin there-one of the first in the district. A few days afterward Gambell and Sam Link organized a mining dis- trict after the customary formula, which was brief and to the point, dis- tinguishing it as " New Nevada." Gambell states that he recorded the first town lot in the district. About the same time the somewhat renowned " Pat Casey" began to open a claim he had taken on the Burroughs lode. After a short time spent here the subject of this sketch crossed over into the Valley of Clear Creek, visiting the soli- tudes of its head waters and passing over into Middle Park.
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We present this sketch with the view of illustrating the character of the strong men who blazed the early trails and discovered some of our greatest mining sections. Hundreds more might be related, but it is unnecessary.
By this time the entire scene of mining transactions had been transferred to the mountains, spreading over a vast territory. Groups crossed from Russell into Clear Creek, locating on Grass Valley, Soda Creek, Illinois, Payne's and Spanish Bars, whence they scattered over the Western ranges into the South Park, and to the Arkansas. Some of the earliest were met and killed by the Ute Indians. In the fall many important discoveries were made-under the shadows of Mount Lincoln, at Buckskin Joe near the Mosquito Range, at Fairplay, and Tarryall, Hamilton, and other points. The Phillips mine at Buck- skin Joe was in its time the most prominent in the region. The dis- trict was named for Joseph Higginbottom, one of a party of six pros- pectors. This occurred in September 1859. But it was not until 1860 that this section acquired its renown, when a town was laid out by Jacob B. Stansell, Miles Dodge and J. W. Hibbard, who gave it the name of Laurette. A rude stamp mill was brought in and began reducing the surface quartz of the Phillips, which was very rich and easily treated. At one time there were twenty-four stamps and a dozen arastras at work upon the ores of this and neighboring mines. The district prospered amazingly, saloons multiplied, and Buckskin developed into one of the very brisk and breezy settlements of the country.
Let us now return to the original base and note the progress made there in the months between May and December.
Excepting Russell's, few of the gulches yielded remarkable returns, though several of them paid handsomely. In the lower section it became apparent that sluicing must be supplemented by crushing mills in order to secure the gold retained in the quartz. All that had been gained by the primitive appliances was a collection of the loose metal sprinkled through the more complete decompositions.
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As a cheap but exasperatingly slow and tedious substitute for stamps, Mexican arastras were adopted, and several constructed during the autumn. Says Cushman, "One Mr. Red exhibited the quality of his genius in a trip hammer, pivoted on a stump, the hammer head pound- ing quartz in a wooden trough. For obvious reasons this was dubbed the 'Woodpecker Mill.' The next was a home made six stamper, built by Charles Giles of Galloway County, Ohio, run by water power and situated near the mouth of Chase Gulch. The stamp stems- shod with iron-the cam-shaft, cams and mortar were of wood. This rude concern netted the owner $6,000 that summer and fall. The first imported mill was the little three stamper of T. T. Prosser, which was set up in Prosser Gulch. About the middle of September. Colman & Le Fevre brought in a six stamp mill." Quite a number of others followed, and when all were in operation, the monotonous pounding of stamps was heard all along the line from Central to Black Hawk, lending an air of progressive industry which has not been presented in any other district, because only a few have employed such methods of reduction. The pioneer newspaper of the Gregory dig- gings was established August 8, 1859, by Thomas Gibson, and entitled " The Rocky Mountain Gold Reporter and Mountain City Herald." Though of modest dimensions, scarcely larger than an ordinary double letter sheet, it contained all the news of the time in well condensed articles and items. It ran until the snows began to fall, and was then suspended until the following spring, when its publication was resumed in Denver, and the papers distributed to its mountain readers by express. In time it developed into the "Herald," and finally to the "Denver Commonwealth," owned by Thomas Gibson and edited by Lewis Ledyard Weld and O. J. Hollister.
All the available space in the gulches and upon the mountain sides was covered with tents and wagons, with occasionally a log cabin. William N. Byers occupied a not very commodious canvas backed residence in Central City, and was the first to suggest its name, this particular locality affording at least sufficient level ground for a town
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site, and being equi-distant from Black Hawk and Nevada. It ap- pears that Mr. Byers had come over from the Jackson Diggings on Clear Creek, and when arrived at the point where the "Register" block now stands, he looked down the gulch toward Gregory, and espied John L. Dailey and Thomas Gibson cutting timber out of the road.
They soon met and established their camp at the junction of what became when the town was founded, Main and Lawrence streets.
It was not long before some kind of an organization became an absolute necessity. In such a heterogeneous mass of human beings great disorder prevailed. Loud complaints arose from the majority against the order of things which permitted those who came in May and June to absorb all the profitable ground. They demanded a division. Therefore, to quiet the clamor a mass meeting was held at Gregory Point, over which Wilkes Defrees presided, and which, through Green Russell's party acting in conjunction with the early comers, was controlled wholly in that interest. A committee of twelve was appointed to draft a code of laws, rules and regulations. The bound- aries of the district were defined, the size of lode claims fixed, the method of locating determined, and a court of arbitration created for the settlement of disputes between claimants. At a subsequent meet- ing held on the 9th of July, another resolution was adopted, providing for the election of a Sheriff, a President, Secretary, and Recorder of Claims, the ballot to be taken forthwith. It resulted in the election of Richard Sopris, President, C. A. Roberts, Recorder, and Charles Peck, Sheriff. Before adjournment a committee was appointed to codify the laws of the district which up to that time had been based upon a series of resolutions.
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CHAPTER XIV.
1859 -- ATTEMPTS TO INSTITUTE SOCIAL AND CIVIL ORDER-MOVEMENT FOR STATE ORGANIZATION-CONSTITUTION REJECTED-ELECTION OF B. D. WILLIAMS TO CON- GRESS - THE TERRITORY OF JEFFERSON -- PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-LEAVEN- WORTH AND PIKE'S PEAK EXPRESS -- AMOS STECK AND THE U. S. MAILS -- DUEL BETWEEN R. E. WHITSITT AND PARK M'CLURE -- INCEPTION OF WHEAT CULTURE -- PROF. O. J. GOLDRICK-FOUNDING OF SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES-APPEAL TO CONGRESS FOR A STABLE GOVERNMENT -- PEOPLE'S COURTS-HOW THE MINERS PUNISHED CRIMINALS-LAWLESSNESS IN DENVER.
The year 1859 was, in many respects, the most interesting period of our history. Heterogeneous masses, collected by groups from the different States, made up of all grades-collegians, embryonic states- men, lawyers, aspiring politicians, slaveholders, abolitionists, merchants, clerks, mechanics, farmers, teamsters, gamblers, laborers, desperadoes, criminals of every sort, fugitives from justice, crowding, pushing and rudely jostling each other in a wild, indiscriminate scramble for spoils, assembled upon the extreme frontier over which there was no jurisdic- tion of law, local, state or federal. In this strange conglomeration there was but one thought, the hope of gain through the single pursuit of gold mining or its natural correlatives. To reduce these incongruous and disorderly elements to a state of homogeneity, was the impelling purpose of the frequent political movements which began in March, and sprang up at intervals throughout the year. The absence of the controlling force in every form of modern civilization-the gentler sex -intensified and widened the confusion. There were neither wives, daughters, sisters nor homes. It is not possible for any community composed wholly of males to perfect or maintain a well directed sys-
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